Freeport Mayoral Candidates Discuss Crime

FREEPORT (WIFR) -- We continue our series of interviews with the Stateline's mayoral candidates. In Freeport the three candidates talk about how they plan to combat crime if they're elected.

Jon Staben, Peoples Party Mayoral Candidate, says "You have young people out there who have nothing to do, there's no work, there's nothing to focus their time on. They find something to do and the crime rate goes up. What feeds on that is our properties. The more vacant properties we have, the more we have a crime problem." Kathy Knodle, Independent Mayoral Candidate, says "I would meet with the Chief of police and the police officers to find out what they think needs to be done. They're the ones out on the streets, they're the ones dealing with this. One of things that I heard when I spoke to them was training. They felt there needed to be more training, so that is one of the things I would look into." Jim Gitz, Citizens Party Mayoral Candidate, says "There has to be an alliance with the neighborhoods, and there has to be an investment in the neighborhood with the police department in order to make it really work because we don't have the resources to hire enough police to do it, and that strategy alone normally works. So I see the neighborhood involvement, public safety and police intimately related."

Friday night hear from Loves Park's mayoral candidates. We'll ask incumbent Darryl Lindberg and challenger John Pruitt what they think is the number one issue facing their city.

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